Namingway
by GuardianSaiyoko
Summary: Names are more important than you think.


I stood with my arms folded on the decaying wooden railing and leaned into the wind, eyes shut, wind whipping at my hair. To be honest with you, when I learned to meditate I pissed off my instructors royally. Princesses are supposed to sit primly in a little room with their legs crossed beneath them and focus on their breathing. Princesses are supposed to stay put and look pretty.

Princesses shouldn't stay out in thunderstorms.

Princesses should pray to Leviathan in their quiet little rooms.

Princesses shouldn't give themselves up to the fury of a raging storm and let their thoughts fly with it.

Princesses shouldn't run away from home.

Princesses shouldn't run away to save the world.

Princesses shouldn't return home with stolen goods to see if home still wants them.

Princesses shouldn't return stolen goods and choose a second family.

Princesses mediate serenely, in little quiet rooms, hands clasped and traditional dress fluttering out around them and speaking softly to Leviathan.

I'm bad at lots of things. If there's one thing, though, that I am the absolute worst at, it's being a princess.

So I'm leaning on a wooden railing, facing out across the sea, watching as lightning flashes cause red flares behind my closed eyes, feeling the wind surround me and whistle past and trough my body, the beating of the waves against this failing dock and the thunder pulsing. Focus on my breathing? To hell with that. I focus on the thunder, the heartbeat of the Dragon God, or so the monks used to tell me. I'm acutely conscious of the way my clothing feels on me, because it isn't my clothing. It's a shirt of Tifa's, and a sweater of Cloud's, a cape of Vincent's, Barret's boots, goggles Cid gave me. The fingers of my left hand are twined through a bracelet on my right, a gift from Reeve. Red's Plus Barette clips my hair back.

We weren't actually together that long. Maybe a couple of months before the Reunion. Time was hard to judge; it moved strangely the whole time we were together. Sometimes it moved too slowly, others much too quickly. It was only a week between Sephiroth summoned Meteor and when we beat him. The first three days or so, too, Cloud had Mako poisoning. And that last day he gave us to get ready. I went into the woods; I don't know where most of the others went. I had assumed that those that had a home went to it, but I didn't, and I know Cid didn't either because Shera asked me if I knew where he _had_ gone the last time I saw her, five years ago.

Five years. I'm an adult, y'know? But I don't feel any different. When I grew up, when I really grew up, it was never measured by age. Sixteen, eighteen, twenty-one…Sixteen was when I ran away from home the first time. Eighteen was when I left for the second time, with AVALANCHE, with their materia returned. Twenty-one…twenty-one was the fight in the Northern Crater.

No, that's not right. Because what about Aeris? What about the rocket? Or he train? Or the Reunion? No, I've made sixteen and eighteen and twenty-one over and over again. I look at the other young women in Wutai and think to myself…Gods, but they look young. Do I look like that?

Of course, that's what I did before. Now I'm dressed in remnants of my past and looking to the storm for answers. This is how _I_ meditate. Let the wind and water fill my soul and question the Dragon God with all my heart and mind.

The wind fills me. It completes me, and I hear laughter and feel the tiny red crystal of Mako that allows me to ask my god for aid grow warm.

_** Little bright eyes, who are you?**_

My answer is not in words. I am starlight, I am sunlight, I am forest, wind and water. I am firelight, I am candlelight, I am day, night and fire. I am battlelust and battlerage. Never let go. Never surrender. Never regret. I am a savior. I am damned. I am a princess fallen. I am the snow hurtling down the cliffside to bury those not quick enough or smart enough to get out of the way. I am AVALANCHE.

AVALANCHE comes through as a word, a thought, a feeling and seems as if it would burst me from within. My hands are tracing scars. The lines on my fingers where claws hooked and pulled. The sword-slash in my thigh. The line just above my hip. The chunk ripped out of my ankle.

**_ Then go and become what you are inside._**

I straightened and turned and began to walk away. I got my chocobo from the stable I'd built onto my house. That house at the edge of town? I built it. By myself. With my own two hands, when I couldn't stand living in the same house as Godo anymore. I was thirteen. I was strong and smart; I installed traps in the house with my own designs. Until I met Cloud and Tifa and all the rest I was pretty damn full of myself. Then I met them, determined to save the world for no reason at all. Reeve's words came back to me.

_ You don't get paid. You don't get praised. Yet, you still risk your lives and continue on your journey. Seeing that makes me... it just makes me think about my life._

Yeah, I was thinking now, as I saddled Doran and took off. Gold streaked fast across the ocean.

I was in Rocket Town in no time. I didn't know if Cid was there or not; he'd find me if he was. I think Vincent was staying with him, too. I checked into the inn.

"Name?"

"Yuffie Strife."

You know what got left out of all the stories? Besides that no one remembers us. Besides that no one knows we saved them. Besides all the little things, injuries, sleepless nights, terror. Besides how hard it was to part at the end, because it was the end, because we might not ever see each other again. The way we all sat down that day and made some…contingency plans. We'd all lost at least one home.

We all traveled under one name. We always all used the name Strife. It made it easy to find each other. Strife was a fitting name; we strove against all odds. Names are more inportant than you think. Really.

Our pilot's name was Lawrence. He had a girlfriend at home in Junon named Rose. They were going to get married in April, but Lawrence died when the Highwind crashed.

The doctor in Mideel is named Hiroko. He has a daughter who lives in Wutai. She's a sweet little girl and he works out in Mideel to send money to her and her mother.

Choco Billy is good at poker and really loosens up around someone who knows a good chocobo. Once I was on Red's team and we were roughed up pretty bad, low on supplies, and Billy let us all sleep in the stables for free. Yeah, they're stables, but they have a roof. A roof's a big deal when it's pouring rain and you have no tent and you're bleeding pretty badly. He gave us potions, too. That was after the teams were made uneven by Aeris' death, so it was just me and Red.

Red got the short end of the stick a lot. In Cosmo Canyon he's revered; in the rest of Gaia he's a dog. Except for an old man in Kalm who liked to talk with Red about philosophy, who knew he was intelligent.

Even chocobos have a huge role. They got us to the hidden island with Knights of the Round that we used to take out Jenova at the end.

All the little people always get left out, but they're the ones we fight for.

You learn when you're fighting for the world exactly how you want to live your life: without regrets. Taking chances. Live for the moment because the moment might be all you've got. Put your all into everything.

I'm a fighter, not a princess. A ninja, not a diplomat.

Yuffie Kisaragi is to formally take her place as princess of Wutai tomorrow. To rule by her father's side. She will never show. Wutai will choose a different princess from the cousins of the royal line. The royalty are figureheads anyway, the war with Wutai has destroyed the power of the title.

Yuffie Strife plans to reunite with her family and then stay with them, no matter what.


End file.
